Piloting Toward Nirvana

‘Tis the season to be jolly.

If not quite that sunny, at least hopeful, even optimistic, for coming this fall is the best new prime-time season in memory.

You’re waiting for the other shoe, the gloomy one, to crash like a block of cement. Nope, no other shoe, not even a Birkenstock.

You’re skeptical, wondering: How can we rely on the memory of someone who probably can’t recall what he had for breakfast? Trust me, you can. I had a bagel for breakfast (or was that last year?).

You’re thinking: Why should we give credence to this guy’s taste? Believe me, you should. Have I ever misled you? All right, those few times. But this is a new millennium, I’m in rehab, and my mind is clearer now.

TV programming strategies have changed dramatically through the years along with technology, and for some time now broadcasting has joined cable in drizzling out new series nearly year-round instead of crowding them into a clump. Yet tradition largely holds, and fall remains the major portal through which prime-time newcomers from over-the-air networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, the WB and UPN) are introduced to the public like corsaged, ball-gowned, spotlighted debutantes from the 1950s.

The decadence metaphor is fitting, given the industry’s record of looking backward for inspiration.

My barometer of a fall season is how many of these new suckers I want to watch (yes, it’s always about me and my needs) more than once. My bar is low. Is it too much to ask that, say, 15% of them ring my bell? Usually yes, unfortunately.

Yet 2001-2002 is looking very good (unless another explanation exists for the ringing I hear).

In addition to holdover “Survivor”-inspired faux- reality shows, three new ones are arriving this fall (“The Amazing Race” on CBS and “Eliminate Deluxe” and “Lost in the USA” on the WB). Haven’t seen ‘em. And unavailable also is “Enterprise,” the latest “Star Trek” progeny from UPN, one of just two series it’s introducing.

I’ve seen pilot episodes for the remaining 30 newcomers, though, finding a whopping 14 (nearly half) that I look forward to seeing beyond these first episodes. It won’t be easy: Some of these elite are competing in the same time slots.

A caution: Pilots are usually representative of the series that follow, but not always. Some recasting and re-shooting is inevitable, and when original pilots do air intact, beware of gleaming hood ornaments on rusted chassis.

Yet ...

Although falling short of “Sopranos”-esque, CBS and Fox have especially bright catalogs of new shows for fall. Next best are ABC and the WB. UPN is nearly invisible here, and five of six NBC newborn range from fair to dreadful.

First the dramas:

Simon Baker is about stonily perfect in “The Guardian” as a young attorney somehow straddling the arenas of corporate and public interest law. The conundrum: It’s on CBS at 9 p.m. Tuesdays, when “24” is on Fox and “Smallville” on the WB.

I was frustrated after watching “24,” with Kiefer Sutherland persuasively heading an elite CIA team in a thriller whose 24 episodes (billed as self-contained) cover a single 24-hour day in a plot to assassinate a presidential nominee. What frustrated me was not having another episode to immediately pop in.

Even though “Smallville” is the umpteenth retelling of early Superman, moreover, the premiere is nicely full of wonder. I mean, what was it that turned that decent young man, Lex Luthor, into such a cad?

Staying with CBS, I also wanted more of “Citizen Baines,” largely because of James Cromwell as a prominent U.S. senator from Seattle who is heavily favored to win a fourth term. The “citizen” in the title tips you that he doesn’t. Another good cast lives up to its notices in “The Education of Max Bickford,” with Richard Dreyfuss as a veteran college professor who is not at all pleased when losing an expected promotion to his former student, played by Marcia Gay Harden. Meanwhile, Helen Shaver as a male-to-female transsexual here says a lot for modern science.

Much creepier fun on CBS is “Wolf Lake,” where Lou Diamond Phillips is tracking a pack of these animals living in human form, Tim Matheson’s local sheriff is looking a little wolfie himself, and Graham Greene is the local know-it-all Native American.

Speaking of decadence, Fox’s other worthy new drama, “Pasadena,” depicts twisted old money through the eyes of a small girl whose mother tries everything to please her snooty mother-in-law. The pilot is mysterious and deliciously trashy.

The last of the good dramas are on ABC, where Jennifer Garner projects vulnerability and swagger in “Alias” while kicking the most butt since “La Femme Nikita” as a collegian trying to navigate the deadly warrens of her CIA employer. Just as resilient and resourceful is Kim Delaney as a Philadelphia defense attorney in “Philly,” the latest series from Steven Bochco. It qualifies for this elite group by just a hair, but bears watching.

For once, meanwhile, there’s something funny about many of the new comedies, the best going laugh-track-less.

NBC scores here with “Scrubs,” a darkly humorous hospitalcom about an overmatched young medical intern who is inept without being bumbling. As a bonus, NBC has bequeathed it the time slot after “Frasier.”

In the “The Bernie Mac Show,” Fox has an original comedy that is routine on paper--a man who never wanted kids finds himself burdened with some when his sister checks into rehab--while playing hilariously on the screen. I also like the quirky wit of Fox’s “Undeclared,” which monitors a geeky college freshman and five of his peers.

There is something quite seductive, also, about “Danny,” with Daniel Stern a single father running a community center with a distinctive touch on CBS; and the WB’s weirdly funny “Maybe It’s Me,” in which a 15-year-old girl finds coping at school difficult but easier than dealing with her bizarre family.

These all are funny. Or maybe it is me.

In any case, the two absolute clunkers I saw, both of which merited dynamiting, were from NBC. One is the clumsy comedy “Inside Schwartz,” which deploys with abandon actual sports figures who can’t act and one horrific sports metaphor after another. The other is “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” from, of all people, Dick Wolf, producer of “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” The pilot is witheringly bad, making it one “Law & Order” too many.

Finally, familiar faces. Following Michael Richards, Jason Alexander may be the second gifted “Seinfeld” alumnus to bomb his own comedy. Alexander’s motivational speaker in the mediocre “Bob Patterson” affirms that, performers notwithstanding, laughs start with good writing. Waiting in the wings with her own midseason scheduled pilot on NBC, by the way, is alum No. 3, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Also returning to prime time this season is Ellen DeGeneres, whose CBS sitcom, “The Ellen Show,” is humdrum despite Cloris Leachman as her mother.

Heading her own series, too, as a hard-driving medical examiner in the so-so “Crossing Jordan,” is Jill Hennessy, whose 1996 departure from “Law & Order” I mourned deeply.

Overall, though, this is the fall season when I shed my black armband.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted by e-mail at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.